


The Darkest Hour

by 0hHeyThereBigBadWolf



Series: Tales of a Dragon and His Prince [11]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Do Not Re-Post To Another Site, Dragon Merlin (Merlin), Dragonspeak, Episode Fix-it, Episode: s04e01-02 The Darkest Hour, Friendship, Humor, M/M, Pet Names, Shapeshifting, Wyverns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:41:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23904034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf/pseuds/0hHeyThereBigBadWolf
Summary: ...can be lit with a bit of dragonfire.
Relationships: Knights & Merlin (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Series: Tales of a Dragon and His Prince [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1737112
Comments: 23
Kudos: 772





	The Darkest Hour

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mother_of_lions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mother_of_lions/gifts).



Arthur had honestly thought that his week could not possibly get any more difficult. Between his father's condition and Morgana and now the Dorocha, he had been fool enough to believe that it couldn't get worse.

And now he is dealing with goddamned wyverns.

There's more of them than he's ever seen in one place before, crawling over the ruins and diving towards them with claws extended, and even if they manage to land blows against a few, none are fatal, and there are more to replace their wounded companions.

"Arthur!" Leon shouts, and he ducks on reflex; sharp claws pass so close over his head they damn near part his hair.

Percival cries out as another manages to rake its claws over his shoulder, splitting his maille with ease, the blow throwing him to the ground.

 _"Karsoht,"_ Merlin hisses out. Ducking past another wyvern, he shoves past Arthur, ducking around the other knights and running out to the middle of the empty courtyard. "Everyone _down!"_

It goes against every bit of his trained instinct to take his eyes off the enemy, to expose his back, but he can feel the air stirring, a sudden spike of heat, and he knows what's coming. He drops his sword, flings himself to the ground, and covers his head with both arms, and he hears the scrape of steel on stone as the others hopefully follow his lead and do the same.

There is a shuddering reverberating _shift_ in the air, thunder without sound, and then the entire world _roars._

Arthur peers up through the gap between his arms, unable to help but grin as the dragon opens its wings wide and roars again, sending the wyverns shrieking and fluttering away, scattering like fearful sheep before the wolf.

Merlin isn't near so big as Kilgharrah, but that does not mean he is by any means small. He is a good four metres high at the shoulder and near thrice that in length, most of it in neck and tail, whip-lean. Scales ripple in hues of black-blue-purple, a splash of pale cream along the throat and breast. Spiny armoured fans extend from beneath the horned crest in warning, and he roars after them again, though he doesn't give chase, green-tinted fire licking out between his teeth.

As the wyverns' clamour fades, Merlin lets out a snort and resettles his wings, the spiny frill folding in. Golden eyes sweep back towards them, pupils thin feline slits before expanding as they settle on Arthur. "Are you well, _îshta?_ Are you all well?"

"I'm fine, thanks to you." He gets to his feet and picks his sword up, sliding it home to its scabbard. He turns towards the rest of the knights.

"Dragon." Leon, still lying on his belly and staring up at Merlin with mouth agape.

"Merlin." Lancelot, sheet-white but grinning as he gains his feet, a little unsteady.

"That was _great!"_ Gwaine.

"Dragons speak?" Elyan.

"So this is how you beat me at arm-wrestling." Percival.

Arthur casts his gaze up to Merlin, grinning. "They're fine."

He has a fair bit of explaining to do after that, for whilst those of the Round Table had all known of Merlin's magic, Arthur had been the only one who knew of Merlin's Dragonlord heritage, including his skinchanging ability. He gives them the abridged version, knowing that Merlin will explain it better once this mess is dealt with and they are safe.

"That's…madness, sire," Leon remarks, staring up at Merlin, who is currently scaling a half-crumbled tower and searching for any sign of returning wyverns. Under the clouded sky, his scales appear entirely black, without their ripples of colour. "Madness," he repeats softly. Even so, the corners of his mouth inch upwards in a faint smile.

"I don't see any others, but the Isle is full of places to hide," Merlin says as he climbs over a wall into the courtyard, more like some great, sinuous feline than a reptile. "The whole place reeks of them. I think we've disturbed a _ghatoj."_

"A what now?" Elyan remarks. He's come over to examine Merlin's scales, standing near the end of his tail and muttering about how they bend.

"A _ghatoj._ A pack of wolves, a _ghatoj_ of wyverns. Would you like one?" he asks of Elyan.

"May I?"

Merlin can't quite smile in this form, as a dragon's snout isn't made for it, but Arthur recognises it in him nonetheless, the way his tail-tip flicks and his ears twitch. "Yes. We don't shed our skins all at once, but we lose scales as they're damaged and grow new ones." He goes to one of the sturdier walls and leans into it, rubbing his shoulder against the stone; it's much like seeing a bear scratch itself on a tree. When he draws back, there's a patch of stone several shades lighter grey than the rest of the wall, scoured free of moss and lichen. He gives himself a shake, and a few scales rattle free from his shoulder, falling to the ground. "Here, _er-talassat."_

A child given sweetmeats couldn't have grinned any brighter. Elyan gathers up the scales and goes to sit near the small fire, studying them curiously. The flames are oddly green due to the fact that it is dragon-fire, helpfully provided by Merlin until some proper firewood could be found. It's early to set up camp, but with the Dorocha free and no doubt all over the Isle, none of them want to wait for it to get dark.

"Do you plan on rejoining us on two legs anytime soon?" Arthur asks, tilting his head back in order to meet the dragon's eyes. In this skin, they stay the same gold his eyes turn when using magic.

Merlin examines the sky once more, ears cocked. "No. That many wyverns, I'll do better keeping them away like this. And if the Dorocha come, I'll have my fire."

Arthur would've liked to curl up with Merlin in his bedroll tonight, all sleepy and pliable as he always is after slipping his skin, but he supposes they will all be safer with a dragon around them. Resigning himself to a less-pleasant night of sleeping beside hard scale, he joins the others at the fire, going to mediate between Leon and Percival, who are quietly arguing about how best to make supper from their rations.

"Merlin?" Elyan calls, still studying the scales. "What was that word you called me? It didn't sound like the Old Tongue."

"It wasn't. It was the language of dragons, and I called you _er-talassat,_ my friend."

Arthur whirls on heel to glare up at this overgrown lizard. "Oh, so you'll tell him what the hell you're saying, but not me?" he demands. "See if I share the good wine with _you_ again!"

Merlin only waggles his ears, the cheeky bastard.

If the Isle is an eerie place in daylight, it is doubly so come nightfall, shadows seeming to move and crawl in the corner of one's vision and draughts of cold air sliding through the broken stones in sobbing gusts.

Merlin curls himself around their meagre little camp, chin resting on a toppled column, ears pricked for the slightest sound of the Dorocha's wailing. This close to the torn veil, he would have expected to see more of them, but so far, he's only heard faint, distant sighs, none of them anywhere near. Perhaps they avoid dragons, or perhaps they are bound for easier prey. Either way, he isn't taking chances.

"I can take watch," Arthur offers, sitting in the crook of his foreleg and leaning against his chest. "Let you sleep."

"Not yet. I'm awake." And the wyverns are still about, even if they are beyond the reach of firelight. He can hear their claws skittering, hides rasping. Every now and then, firelight will gleam in a pair of red eyes. Even as he thinks about it, he can hear one sidling closer at a slow crawl, his ear twitching towards the sound. He raises his head slightly but doesn't turn, lip curling back from his teeth, flashing canines— _don't dare._ It scuttles away, nerve lost.

There's a round of disgusted exclamations as Gwaine pulls off his boots and socks, Elyan and Leon making a show of relocating to the other side of the fire.

"Why am I always the butt?" Gwaine laments.

"Can't imagine," Leon retorts.

He lays his socks out by the fire. "Pick on Percival."

The big knight spreads his hands. "Why me?" he asks.

"Yeah, at least _he_ washes."

"And he doesn't set fire to his socks."

Merlin snorts a laugh; he hadn't thought there was anything worse than Arthur's socks, but that assumption has just been corrected in pungent fashion. "And _I_ am grateful to be sitting upwind," he remarks.

All eyes shift to him for a moment, and even though Gwaine snorts and makes a rude gesture with one hand, the levity of the moment is diminished.

He lowers his chin to the column once more, biting back a sigh. The logical part of himself had known things would change once they knew what he was, and yet he can't help but be stung.

Arthur rises and moves to stand beside Merlin's head, stroking the thinner scales behind his ear. "They'll be fine, Merlin. I think they're just a bit shaken," he murmurs in an undertone, low enough only Merlin could hear him. "You having magic is one thing, but seeing you slip your skin out of nowhere…you gave them a start. Even Lancelot."

 _Aso._ A flicker of amusement kindles in his chest. Arthur's always had…feelings about the fact Lancelot had known of Merlin's magic before he did. Jealousy might not be _precisely_ what it is, but it's the closest Merlin can come to naming it. And now, of course, he has his own private victory. He can almost _smell_ the smugness on Arthur, the prat, and he extends one of his fans, swatting the prince-regent's side with it.

"Mind yourself," Arthur warns, reaching up to scratch the base of his horns.

And speaking of, he can hear Lancelot returning, burdened with what little firewood the Isle has to offer, and he lets out a hum of contentment, curling himself around their camp so he's almost surrounding them entirely, tailtip just a few handspans from his nose. Much better. Arthur is precious to him and always will be as his mate, but the others are dear to him as well, are _his._ Even if some of them still look at him askance, eyeing his claws.

But of course, not all are quite so fearful. "Hells, we almost don't need a fire with you around," Gwaine remarks as he reclines against Merlin's side, stretching his legs out. "Warm as an oven, you are. Hard as plate, though." He raps his knuckles against a scale. "Couldn't conjure yourself a softer hide, could you?"

Merlin rolls his eyes—a well-honed skill of his no matter what skin he's in—and twitches a wing, swatting him with a wingtip.

"Hey! Mind the hair!"

It works to break the tension. One by one, the others come to sit against him as well, propping their bedrolls up behind them as makeshift cushions. Merlin doesn't mind. They aren't at all heavy against him, and it allows that sharp, hot curl of possessiveness in his breast to settle, sated. A part of him is nearly tempted to tell them that this is how dragonets sleep against their dams to keep warm until their own fire was kindled, but he knows if he does, they'll move. Instead, he holds his silence and unfolds one wing by degrees, extending it over them for a brief second and taking pleasure in having all his treasures together.

He doesn't sleep until near dawn, letting the others take their rest; when he wakes up, however, it's to fresh blood-smell. It brings him instantly awake, twisting his neck around to do a rapid count. There is Arthur, still asleep against his chest, and there are one-two-three-four-five knights asleep at his belly, covered in their capes. He lowers his head towards them, tongue flickering out. All safe, all alive. None of them are bleeding.

Turning his gaze outwards once he's reassured of his treasures, and he sees the source of the blood-smell—a pair of deer, freshly dead and still warm, lying only a few feet away from where his head rested. There are mirroring wounds on the deer, gouges on the haunches and mangled necks, heads almost chewed off. It's the work of wyverns; they hunt by dropping directly down onto their prey, digging their claws in to hold, and biting the back of the neck to break the spine.

Speaking of wyverns, Merlin can feel his heart begin to beat faster when he looks up and sees nearly two dozen of them perched on the ruins around them like gargoyles given life, red eyes staring down. He bares his teeth at them, fans opening in warning, a growl in his throat.

"Merlin, what's…?" Arthur murmurs, drowsy in sleep as he would never be around anyone else, but then his body goes rigid. "Merlin." Alarm laces his voice. He's seen their visitors as well.

As the other knights begin to stir, giving strangled curses of alarm and hastily scrambling to their feet, one of the wyverns leaps from its perch, loping forward. It is larger than the others by half, leathern hide marked with scars all over; it's older than the others, too. A wyvern's back and neck spines multiply with age, and this one bristles with more quills than a hedgepig.

The wyvern stops just beside the deer and sits on its haunches, gazing at him with deep red eyes below a thick brow ridge. "Good sun, _drakkosviseyn,"_ it says in its own tongue, the words sounding as though they are ground out between two stones.

"Merlin?" Arthur repeats, this time questioning. "Is it…speaking to you?"

"Yes."

"What's it saying?" Gwaine asks.

"She," Merlin corrects absently. "Female wyverns are larger than males." They have to be, otherwise the more aggressive males would cannibalize the pips, even their own. "And I'm trying to understand her. Hush a moment."

The wyvern's words are passably Drakine, but he can only pick out a handful of them, the others too mangled to be understood. After a moment of parsing through, he understands that her name is Yaritassash Sunwarmth, and she is the _visayr_ of this _ghatoj,_ and the ruins of the Isle are their nesting land, which is why the drakes attacked without provocation. They hadn't known Merlin was a Dragonlord, nor that the knights were his, and she's offering them blood and bone to repay the slight.

"I do accept your offering, and I offer my word that we are here to give no harm to your _ghatoj_. We seek to correct an unbalancing of the world," Merlin replies in Drakine so he knows she'll understand.

At that, her spines all rise, like a cat lifting its hackles, and they rattle against one another as she shivers, a sound of clear warning. Her mouth opens, displaying double rows of needle-sharp teeth.

The knights shuffle uneasily at his side, and he unfolds a wing over them in quiet reassurance. She isn't angry at them. She feels the same _wrongness_ of the veil being torn, and having such danger so near to her pips and her _ghatoj_ stoke her anger. In a lower, growling tone, she tells him where the priestesses went, how one had sacrificed its wounded sister to open the veil. Another sacrifice would be needed to close it, blood for blood.

Merlin scrapes his claws on the stone. "My thanks, _visayr_. Go and take your _ghatoj_ with you until we end this."

She lifts her many-spined head and snaps her jaws. "Good hunt for kinslayer, _drakkosviseyn_. You be clan-kin, man no-prey. I-Yari hunt for you. Sunwarmth _ghatoj_ hunt for you."

Merlin snaps his jaws in return. "Good hunt."

Yaritassash turns and lets out a series of sharp, coughing barks at the other wyverns, then takes to the air; the others follow with her, like some flock of great leathery birds.

Arthur reaches up and tugs his ear. "What in the _hell_ was all that?"

He translates the conversation as Percival and Elyan set to work on skinning one of the deer. If nothing else, they're thankful for a breakfast of fresh venison after so many days of travel provisions. The other, he takes for himself. Normally, he doesn't eat his meals raw in any form, but slipping his skin in haste takes energy, and in honesty, the looks of fascinated disgust on their faces is rather comical.

"A sacrifice," Arthur says darkly, arms folded over his chest as he paces down by the bank, well away from the camp and out of earshot of the others. "Forgive me for saying it, but sometimes the Old Religion is entirely too bloodthirsty."

Merlin raises his head from the cold water—blood itches something fierce if it dries between his scales—and rolls one eye down to look at the prince. "The New Religion asked a man to murder his own child for no other reason than to prove his faith."

"Fair enough."

He gives himself a shake to fling off the excess water and lowers his head to Arthur, flicking out his tongue just to hear the prince make disgusted noises, swatting at his snout. "Whatever you are thinking, _îshta,_ the answer is no," Merlin warns.

"I didn't say anything."

"You didn't have to." He knows damn well Arthur would never ask another to take on a task he would not shoulder himself—he'd fling himself headfirst into the veil before giving such an order to any of his knights.

Arthur folds his arms and glares up at him. "Then what do you suggest we do? Hm? Will you fly to the nearest village, snatch some shepherd from his field?"

Actually, Merlin had been wondering how cross Arthur would be if his uncle were to unexpectedly go missing, but the prince-regent's words tug at a memory. What had I-Yari told him? It would take sacrifice to close the veil, blood for blood. That he had known, but no one had ever said it need be a _human_ sacrifice. He had never taken much interest in bone magic before, but now he racks his memory for all he's read on it. For all Arthur likes to say that the Old Religion is a bloodthirsty one, there are very few rituals which specifically demand human sacrifice. Even here in the Isle, on the altars which still smell of old iron and fear, it is the blood of beasts staining their stone, animals sacred to the Old Ones given as gifts.

Morgana had sacrificed Morgause, but she was already dying. He's not seen her since the last night of the immortal army, but he had heard the sound her skull made on the stone, had smelled her blood and heard her heart fail. In all truth, it's a miracle that she lived so long afterwards. But was it sacrificing a priestess that had opened the veil, or merely offering a living sacrifice on the eve of Samhain?

A stone thumps off his shoulder. _"Merlin!"_

Startled, he looks down. "What?"

Arthur plants both hands on his hips, glowering up at him. "I've been calling your name for the past five minutes, you overgrown tinderbox!" he snaps, but there's a note of concern underlying his irritation. "What the hell are you thinking about so hard? You'll hurt yourself if you carry on like that."

"I'm thinking I may have just found us a way out of this madness," he replies.

"What do you mean?"

"I'll be back in a moment. Stay here, and if you sacrifice yourself while I'm gone, I will be very cross with you."

"We need to come up with a better ending for this."

Merlin makes a puzzled sound and opens one eye.

"Closing the veil." Arthur draws idle patterns on his dragon's flank with a fingertip; he likes how his fingers fit in the notches between Merlin's ribs. "We need a better ending. One day, there will be minstrels and bards singing about this, and how anticlimactic is it that we closed the veil by chasing cattle through a curtain?"

"Oh, gods, shut _up,_ you sacrilegious prat," Merlin groans, dragging a pillow over his head.

In any other situation, it would be an absolutely _hilarious_ tale—a prince and his loyal knights waving their arms and shouting like mad in order to herd two white bulls, helpfully collected by a skinchanging dragon and a pack of wyverns from the nearest pasturage, across a magic isle and through a curtain into the other world. Gwen had laughed herself to tears when Lancelot told her. It would make a fantastic children's tale, but for the annals of Camelot's history, not so fantastic.

Arthur smiles and drags his knuckles up the sweat-slick groove of his spine, applying gentle pressure against his back, just below his shoulder blades where he knows Merlin's wing joints would be. Even in his human skin, it's a sensitive spot, and he smiles a little wider as Merlin rumbles out a purr in response. "So, you said that the wyverns promised to hunt for you. Do you think the, uhm…oh, hell, whatever you called them, would they come fight for us if we ever need them?"

 _"Ghatoj,"_ Merlin corrects, lifting the edge of the pillow to glare at him. "And they might. I don't know, I've not dealt much with wyverns before. Will you please shut up now?"

"Mm, no. Now you know what I have to deal with around you," he replies. In truth, he loves the way Merlin is only ever quiet like this, soft and malleable and drowsy.

He draws a fingertip over the small patches of scale peppering Merlin's shoulders, laid together so tightly they're almost completely smooth, more blue-purple than black. These appear only rarely. Sometimes after a particularly spectacular tumble in bed, but usually when Merlin is at his most relaxed, his most trusting. It's a rare sight in Camelot, even in Arthur's chambers, and he cherishes the sight of them, mad as it sounds. Lowering his head, he presses his mouth over one little patch, tracing the tip of his tongue over the faint ridges of scale. Different though it is, it still tastes like Merlin, tinged with sweat-salt. _"Er-miriik,"_ he murmurs.

"What did you…?" Pushing the pillow off his head, Merlin rolls over onto his back, staring up at him with wide eyes that flicker from gold to blue and back again. "Have you been practicing that?"

Arthur glances away, feeling heat crawl up the side of his neck. "Just a bit." He still doesn't know what that other word means, and he isn't _entirely_ certain it's not an insult of some kind. This one he can at least pronounce with some accuracy. It still doesn't sound quite right, but with practice…. From the way Merlin is looking at him now, though, he didn't mangle it too horribly.

"You really are something else, _îshta,"_ he rumbles, sinking a hand into Arthur's hair and pulling him down into a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Drakkosviseyn—Dragonlord, lit. “dragons’ king”  
> Er(-)—my, in the possessive  
> Îshta—beloved  
> Ghatoj—a familial clan of wyverns  
> Karsoht—bastard  
> Miriik—fate/destiny  
> Talassat—good friend  
> Visayr—queen


End file.
